I haven’t read His Dark Material, but why would angels have any sexual characteristics to wory about? They don’t breed! Sex is entirely irrelevant.
Everyone keeps talking about Percy being a bastard, but quite honestly, I can see why acts that way. And the rest of the Weasely’s don’t look all that good.
They taught him right and wrong and obeying your elders and all the good things. And he is a fine wizard and was all set for a good career. And of course, this being J.K. Rowling, he hit smack dab into the middle of a Voldemort plot. Still, he helped pull off the Triwizard Tournament, and apparently as exonerated of any error by the Ministry.
Now, after this, the Minister himself offers Percy a good job. Percy’s excited to have a real break. However, his Mr. Weasely instead tells him that he’s a loser being used by Fudge. Percy was very angry. He said some not-nice things about his father, which are, in fact, quite true. He leaves, because his father doesn’t want to see him anymore. And he doesn’t. In fact, we get no indication at all that Mr. Weasely ever bothered with Percy again.
And of course, the minute Percy does come back (willingly or not) Mr. Weasely apprently does absolutely nothing, while the rest of the kids make him miserable. Frankly, Mr. Weasely, Fred, George, and Ginny are all bastards.
These particular angels do seem to have a gender. Although as I’ve said, I don’t have a copy in front of me, so can’t check. I do remember that many people regard them as one of the few (only?) canonical gay pairings in children’s fiction, though. BTW, if you like HP you really should real HSD, especially the first one. (It’s called Northern Lights in the UK but I forget the American title. If the babysitter doesn’t turn up soon I’ll go hunt for it).
I can imagine them having a gender. I don’t particularly see why they’d want to have sex. Of course, that doesn’t mean they can’t behave any way they please. I just mean that trying to read homosexuality into what is a fundamentally nonliving being is somewhat odd.
I just finished it last night … here’s my take on it;
For reasons still unkown to us, Dumbledore had extremely good (he might even say, watertight) reason to trust Snape. I think those reasons will be made clear in the next book.
Before he took harry to the cave, Dumbledore made Harry swear that he would finish the job, no matter what happened to Dumbledore. I think Snape is still on the good side, but undercover, and I think such an agreement was made between Dumbledore and Snape as well.
To wit; Voldemort would be too smart to put his soul in such a simple thing as a locket, but it would be the obvious thing that one would think of seeing it protected beneath the bowl of liquid. I don’t think that was the Horcrux at all. I think the liquid itself was the horcrux. In thinking that one had to drink the liquid to get to the locket, Voldemort could easily deposit his soul into whoever drank the liquid then and take over that persons body. And although he put up a valient fight, that’s what happened to Dumbledore.
But Dumbledore also knew what was happening and knew it before hand. He also knew that the only person who could drink the horcrux and have a half way decent chance of living for even a short enough time was a wizard as powerful as himself. So, it was planned before hand that he would drink it and then sacrifice himself, that being the only way to kill that part of Voldemort’s soul without destroying an innocent person instead.
That would explain what Dumbledore was ranting about as he was drinking it; he was obviously reliving a part of Voldemort’s life that scarred him forever and turned him evil. It also explains why Dumbledore was saying “Servius … please” before being killed (he was actually asking Snape to kill him before Voldemort could take over completely), why Snape gave him a look of complete hatred before he did it (that hatred was towards Voldemort, not Dumbledore) and why Malfoy had such a difficult time bringing himself to kill him (he must have recognized Voldemort’s soul in Dumbledore’s body.)
jsgoddess, thank you for that link. That’s a fairly frank and illuminating interview.
I do understand that. They were angels, not humans. However, with these particular characters, I think it takes more of an intellectual leap to imagine them as straight than as gay, however that applies to a human concept of angel sexuality. jsgoddess is right that you don’t necessarily have to be having sex with someone to be same-sex-oriented; otherwise single homosexuals would be asexual (and so would single straight people). In any case, this is a bit of a hijack and I only mentioned it as the one example I could think of of a canon homosexual relationship - and even though I guess it’s possible to interpret it as asexual, the author certainly intended it to be a ‘gay’ relationship.
Yet ask yourself then, why does Harry have this connection to Voldemort - speaking Parselmouth, seeing his thoughts. Having part of his soul seems to make sense.
Perhaps, but the scriptwriter could have been on to something. If you watch the special features under the “Divination” title on disc 2, JK Rowling is interviewed with the director. She mentions that there are a few things in the movie that seriously foreshadow things to come, and they are totally unintentional. She says that she was amazed at the director’s intuition, because there is no way he could have known what isn’t written or published yet. It makes me wonder if this is one of the things she was talking about.
I think I commented on this earlier, but it was lost in the merge. The fact that Malfoy could’ve killed Dumbledore but didn’t is proof that he’s not completely lost and that he can be redeemed. He’s never going to be a likeable character, but he may well have a hero’s role before this tale is over.
Well, okay, but it hasn’t mentioned that as being a possibility. Case in point, Hagrid, who was expelled fifty years ago, name was cleared in book 2 and is still not allowed to do magic, strictly speaking.
I agree about Draco, although I think it’ll be a quick decision on his part; he won’t secretly scheme for the Order like Snape is (probably), but find himself having to make a snap decision and side with the good guys.
However, even though he was unable to kill Dumbledore now, perhaps a little more indoctrination from Voldemort and he will, especially since whether or not Hogwarts ever re-opens, his time there is over. Bridges are burned and smoking for lots of people now.
So I’m not sure. Rowling doesn’t particularly like Draco (or Snape) and is amazed that people find them redeemable or, God forbid, sexy. She doesn’t like it when people confuse them with the admittedly cool actors. She has to redeem Snape (in Harry’s eyes at least) in the next book; will she also do that with Draco?
I think that would be a realistic scenario. Put people into the right situation and their consciences go out the window. But it still takes a little bit of doing on normal people.
I dunno - the scene where Dumbledore visits Tom Riddle at the orphanage seems to indicate that Tom was always a psychopath. I think someone said earlier in the thread that the memories of Tom’s mother make you start to have a little sneaking sympathy for him, but then that memory shows you that some people are just broken - at 11 years old, he’s already torturing animals and younger children for the fun of it. Which sounds a lot like the stereotypical profile for someone who becomes a serial killer as an adult.
I’m wondering if the potion shows the drinker visions of their loved ones being tortured or dying. I’m just thinking that it would be a good safeguard that would make most people stop drinking it, but wouldn’t affect Voldy since he doesn’t have any loved ones to worry about, so he could just drink away to get at the locket any time he wanted.
That sounds like a good possibity. However, I’m wondering what the long-term effect of the potion was. IOW, what would have happened to Dumbledore if Snape hadn’t killed him? I don’t think Dumbledore would have died from the potion. Like he said, Voldemort would want to know how the intruder found out about the cave and the horcrux. I still think it’s possible that the long-term effect might be similar to a love potion, except that you would be in love with Voldemort. This way, Voldemort would find out if anybody drank the potion, since that person would be compelled to seek him out, and Voldy himself could drink the potion with impunity.
The idea that the liquid might be the horcrux is interesting, but I see a problem with it: if an intruder only drinks a couple of glasses and then leaves, do they receive a portion of the soul fragment? If 12 people each drank one glass of the potion, would Voldemort have to hunt down 12 people, each of whom posessed 1/84 of his soul?
I definitely got that that’s what the potion was doing, showing the drinker various horrible scenarios, and one of the worst things for Dumbledore would be students getting tortured. I would guess that for Voldemort he’s already been through his scariest thing (being disembodied and almost dead and powerless) so he could choke the stuff down. Or maybe if he told Kreacher to do it, and that’s what made Kreacher what he is…but we don’t know if Kreacher was with him in the cave, could have been any (now-deceased) Death Eater.
At first reading I thought “what a clever idea”. But upon reflection I don’t think it fits the story.
Dumbledore says that Voldemort’s “magpie” habit is important. Voldemort will be using objects of value in the wizarding world (or to him, Voldermort, personally) for his horcruxes. Marvolo’s ring, a possession of Slytherin, would fit. Merope’s locket, another possession of Slytherin, would also fit. A silver goblet that used to belong to Hufflepuff would. A simple potion would not.
If the potion is the horcrux, what would be the explanation of the note and the locket hidden under the potion? Right now my thought is that R.A.B. found Merope’s locket and replaced it with a facsimile, along with the taunting note.
Actually, I would see Dumbledore as being the clear choice for the Bonder of the Unbreakable Vow. This is how he knows he can trust Snape, and James Potter would probably not agree to have Snape involved with his son.
Another possibility for timing is to have Snape form the Unbreakable Vow in the mysterious time period after Harry Potter is rescued from the wreckage of Godric’s Hollow and before he shows up, carried by Hagrid, at Privet Drive. Much is made of this time lapse on Harry Potter discussion groups (though I don’t know if JK Rowling ever said that the “missing time” was significant.)
I’ll say that the original locket was probably the horcrux.
I find the Harry as a horcrux argument to be interesting. I don’t think he is, but it is plausible (though arguing with someone on another board, he thinks it isn’t plausible at all based on what we know about horcruxes… cause we know a whole lot about them :rolleyes:… anyway…).
First we have to be sure that Dumbledore was correct on the number and types of horcruxes. Assuming that he is, the last one is something either Gryffindor or Ravenclaw. I think the way the series has gone it has to be something Gryffindor. Perhaps something at Godric’s Hollow was owned by GG? Or maybe the Potters are decendant from GG?
